Storrs L. Olson
'Storrs Lovejoy Olson'THE WASHINGTON BIOLOGISTS’ FIELD CLUB: ITS MEMBERS AND ITS HISTORY (1900-2006) PDF, fulltext (born April 3, 1944 in Chicago, Illinois) is an American biologist and ornithologist from the Smithsonian Institution. He is one of the world's foremost Avian paleontologistsLoye and Alden Miller Research Award Recipients - Storrs Olson An appointment with Alexander Wetmore in 1967 led him to his main research field of paleornithology, and to his work on Ascension Island and Saint Helena where he made remarkable discoveries in the 1970s like the Giant HoopoeStorrs L. Olson, Paleornithology of St Helena Island, south Atlantic Ocean, Smithsonian Contributions to Paleobiology 23 (1975) and the Saint Helena Crake. In 1976, he met his future wife Helen F. James who later became another known paleornithologist herself, focusing on Late Quaternary prehistoric birds.Helen F. James During their pioneering research work on Hawaii which last 23 years, Olson and James found and described the remains of 50 extinct bird species new to science, including the Nēnē-nuiJames, Helen F. & Olson, Storrs L. (1991): Descriptions of thirty-two new species of birds from the Hawaiian Islands: Part I. Non-passeriformes. AOU Ornithological Monographs 45: 42-47., the Moa-nalos, the apteribises, or the Grallistrix "stilt-owls". In 1982 he discovered subfossil bones of the long ignored Brace's Emerald on the Bahamas which gave evidence that this hummingbird is a valid and distinct species. Chlorostilbon bracei Lawrence, an extinct species of Hummingbird from New Providence Island, Bahamas (PDF, Fulltext). In November 1999 Olson became notable for his open letter to the National Geographic Society where he criticized Christopher P. Sloan's claims about the dinosaur-to-bird transition which referred to the fake species "Archaeoraptor".El Pais: El 'escándalo archaeoraptor' José Luis Sanz y Francisco Ortega 16/02/2000 Online, Spanish Olson was the 1994 recipient of the Loye and Alden Miller Research Award.Loye and Alden Miller Research Award Recipients He is currently curator of birds at the National Museum of Natural History. Several prehistoric bird species named after Storrs Olson, including Nycticorax olsoni''Bourne, W. R. P., Ashmole, N. P. & Simmons K. E. L.: A new subfossil night heron and a new genus for the extinct rail from Ascension Island, central tropical Atlantic Ocean. Ardea 91, issue 1, 2003: p. 45-51, ''Himantopus olsoni''Bickart, K. J., 1990, The birds of the late Miocene-early Pliocene Big Sandy Formation, Mohave County, Arizona: Ornithological Monographs, no. 44, p. 1-72., ''Puffinus olsoni''J. C. Rando, J. A. Alcover (2008) "Evidence for a second western Palaearctic seabird extinction during the last Millennium: the Lava Shearwater Puffinus olsoni" Ibis 150 (1) , 188–192 doi:10.1111/j.1474-919X.2007.00741.x , ''Primobucco olsoni''Feduccia, A. & Martin, L. D. 1976. The Eocene zygodactyl birds of North America (Aves: Piciformes). Smithsonian Contributions to Paleobiology 27: 101–110., ''Gallirallus storrsolsoni''Kirchman, Jeremy J.; & Steadman, David W. (2006). New Species of Rails (Aves: Rallidae) From an Archaeological Site on Huahine, Society Islands. Pacific Science 60: 281, and ''Quercypodargus olsoni.Mourer-Cliauviré, C. 1989. Les Caprimulgiformes et les Coraciiformes de l'Éocène et de l'Oligocène des phosphorites du Quercy et description de deux genres nouveaux de Podargidae et Nyctibiidae. Acta Congr. Int. Ornithol. 19: 2047-2055. References External links *Biography *Smithsonian critiques National Geographic Society’s claims about dinosaur to bird evolution in an open letter *Hawaii's Vanished Birds - About the research work by Olson and James Category:American paleontologists